Families with Ivy-league Caliber Siblings

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have three kids- one got into Yale and Brown and two who got shut out of Ivies completely. They had nearly identical stats and activities, the oldest certainly wasn’t “more talented” or harder working than his sibs and so I’ll be the first to say that I do think a lot of it is just luck of draw.

There is a huge difference between "luck" and "random". Words matter.

"Luck" is a perspective on having qualities that happen to be desired by that university at that time.

"Random" is "no qualities or accomplishments matter, you are all the same and your chances are the same as everyone else".

Job applicants encounter the same mysterious results, but no one says getting a job over others who are equally qualified is "random". Because it isn't. They liked you better.

Words matter. People make decisions based on them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No. Lottery makes it sound random. College admissions is not random. There are actual algorithms in place.

NP. Oh FFS. Both of you. It’s obnoxious. How about this? Once you have top grades, strong extracurriculars and strong SAT/ACT, some kids get in because they do something truly amazing. Like being a Siemens or Intel winner. But for most kids, luck also plays a role, either in the form of being a legacy or URM or having a prominent alum go to bat for you, resprenting an area or having a talent or skill that rounds out the class, or just writing an essay that speaks to the essay reader. Every kid is there for some reason. But those reasons are either out of most kids control (legacy, URM, rural ND upbringing) or impossible to predict (like who will read or essay or what talents/ skills/ majors admissions feels is missing when they decide on your kid).

Every kid who gets in is talented. Many kids who don’t are as talented

Apply to Ivys. If you don’t get in, go to UVA/WM, work hard, and apply to a top grad school. You’ll still get where you are trying to go.

Geez.

This is precisely what I said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have three kids- one got into Yale and Brown and two who got shut out of Ivies completely. They had nearly identical stats and activities, the oldest certainly wasn’t “more talented” or harder working than his sibs and so I’ll be the first to say that I do think a lot of it is just luck of draw.

There is a huge difference between "luck" and "random". Words matter.

"Luck" is a perspective on having qualities that happen to be desired by that university at that time.

"Random" is "no qualities or accomplishments matter, you are all the same and your chances are the same as everyone else".

Job applicants encounter the same mysterious results, but no one says getting a job over others who are equally qualified is "random". Because it isn't. They liked you better.

Words matter. People make decisions based on them.

If someone makes the decision to apply/not apply to a school based off an anonymous DCUM poster, something tells me they’re not Ivy League quality to begin with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have three kids- one got into Yale and Brown and two who got shut out of Ivies completely. They had nearly identical stats and activities, the oldest certainly wasn’t “more talented” or harder working than his sibs and so I’ll be the first to say that I do think a lot of it is just luck of draw.

There is a huge difference between "luck" and "random". Words matter.

"Luck" is a perspective on having qualities that happen to be desired by that university at that time.

"Random" is "no qualities or accomplishments matter, you are all the same and your chances are the same as everyone else".

Job applicants encounter the same mysterious results, but no one says getting a job over others who are equally qualified is "random". Because it isn't. They liked you better.

Words matter. People make decisions based on them.

If someone makes the decision to apply/not apply to a school based off an anonymous DCUM poster, something tells me they’re not Ivy League quality to begin with.

Is that really your defense of posting incorrect information? That it only affects the ignorant, and who cares about them?

[Anonymous]

The process is not random, but feels random to most because virtually no one outside of the school has complete information about that school's priorities for a given year. Just the fact that there are whole industries built around admissions proves the process is not random.

However, making the college admissions process random would actually help to address some of the inequality that is growing in our country - random distribution of the wealthy, poor, urban, rural, white, black, women, and men would democratize opportunity...but this will not come to pass in today's hyper-partisan and winner-take-all world.

[Anonymous]

"However, making the college admissions process random would actually help to address some of the inequality that is growing in our country - random distribution of the wealthy, poor, urban, rural, white, black, women, and men would democratize opportunity...but this will not come to pass in today's hyper-partisan and winner-take-all world."

This is an interesting idea. The first question I have is does the school make the students or do the students make the school?

If the school makes that students, and it isn't hard to argue that the school does for somewhere between 90 and 95% of students, then your random admissions process would be an improvement.

I just think for the tippy top schools, it is more likely that the students make the school. That is what the adcoms are trying to find, students who are going to add more to the school than a randomly chosen student with the same GPA, SAT score and list of ECs.

[Anonymous]

I also do not agree with posters who say that the road to Ivies is random, luck, or a “crap shoot”. When I look back on my sons graduating class, all of the placements made sense in the end. Some of the top students may not have made it to an Ivy League school, but they did go to school in the top 10 USNWR (Chicago, Duke).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I also do not agree with posters who say that the road to Ivies is random, luck, or a “crap shoot”. When I look back on my sons graduating class, all of the placements made sense in the end. Some of the top students may not have made it to an Ivy League school, but they did go to school in the top 10 USNWR (Chicago, Duke).

+1 I agree with this. We've now graduated 4 from high school and most of the acceptances/selections for their classmates made sense. I also believe that our perspectives are skewed in the DMV. There are so many of us who have college degrees and advanced degrees ourselves, and the area in general is so competitive, that there is a lot of tunnel vision casting our collective gazes at a very small range of schools deemed uber-desirable.